Wednesday, August 23, 2006

This week I watched.....

Took 2 days off last week to spend some quality time with my Immortal Beloved who had the WHOLE week off before starting her new job.As fate would have it,got chop-sockied by the flu virus and armed with antibiotics and a comfy couch and lotsa TLC from my IB,settled down to watch and re-watch movies from my by now gargantuan DVD collection:

Thursday: V For Vendetta Love this Vigorous and occasionally Violent flick about a Vocal and Valorous Vigilante on a Vengeful Crusade against a Vile and Venal Government,aided by a Vivacious Vixen.Verbal Volleys,Vicious Villains and Virtuoso Action.Vunderbah!

Friday:The Sixth Sense Psychiatrist Bruce Willis counsels intense young boy who sees "dead people".M.Night Shyamalan's debut is still his most layered and emotionally honest work to date.With sterling performances from Toni Collette and Haley Joel Osment and a wonderfully restrained turn from Mr.Die Hard himself,this slow but never boring supernatural flick is a winner in my book.And it's a great re-watch even after you know the by-now-talked-to-death TWIST at the end.

Friday: From Hell A ripping Yarn,if you'll pardon the pun.An adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel about the infamous serial killer who terrorised the Whitechapel district in Victorian London.Johnny Depp plays an opium-snorting clairvoyant dick investigating 'Ol Jack's handiwork which begins with stabbing a prostitute before graduating to mutilating,dismembering and relieving his subsequent victim's of their internal organs.Gritty,atmospheric and chilling with enough slash and hack to satisfy this jaded fan of the genre,the Hughes Brothers(why haven't they done anything since then?) have produced a compellingly watchable flick.I first caught this on an atrocious VCD copy,upgraded it to a watchable VCD copy before finally adding this to my DVD collection.

Saturday: Total Recall It's double trouble for Arnie all the way here as people start to chase him both on Earth and in Mars while the Governator juggles not one but 2 Femme Fatales and has to outwit evil Ronny Cox and also his vicious Numero Uno henchman Michael Ironside.Ah-Nuld dreams he's actually a secret agent on Mars trying to foil an evil dictator's reign of oppression while attempting to unlock a secret that could threaten the Red Planet's very existence.Then he realises ..hey he really IS a secret Agent.Baddies tell him..no you're dreaming.He knows he isn't..or does he? I LOVE Paul Verhoeven's movies and this follow up after the awesome Robocop is butt-kicking action all the way while tantalisingly teasing you with the is-it-all-a-dream-or-not scenario.Chalk this one right alongside Terminator and Predator as one of the Austrian muscleman's more cerebral action flicks.

Saturday: True Lies Secret Agent doesn't tell his wife what he does.Baddies kidnap someone close to him and there's an awesome action sequence on a bridge...not it's not Mission:Impossible 3 although watching this flick will remind you how much this summer's Tom Cruise Show ripped off this far superior James Cameron movie.

Sunday: Unbreakable If M.Night Shyamalan had done X-Men or Spider-Man this is what it would have been like.Slow,intense but nevertheless gripping,this assured tale of a man slowly discovering his powers and mission in life is compellingly watchable. Ironically,the by-now-patented Shyamalan twist at the end is for me the weakest aspect of an otherwise solidly plotted suspense drama.

Sunday: Underworld:Evolution Kate Beckinsale,tight leather..enough said.Any questions?Oh yeah...somewhere in between the ancient feud between vampires and werewolves continue.....

No comments: